Orphan of Flame
by Rayni
Summary: Were any watching, they would have seen Serge gazing intently at the comatose girl. Then a flash of light and he fell to his knees, suddenly sooty and coughing. For the first time in days, Kid opened her eyes. Rated for language.
1. A Light Already Lost

**A/N**

This is full of spoilers. Don't even bother if you haven't finished the game.

Although Serge is a silent protagonist in Chrono Cross, he narrates Radical Dreamers. I'm trying to take his personality from that, and I hope this exercise helps me get better at writing different first-person voices. Still, the carefree camaraderie Serge and Kid shared has been tested by time and tragedy, and the characters and their relationship have grown and changed. For a Radical Dreamers fic that does the characters perfect justice, I direct you to Lerayl's "Recollections."

This fic will be finished in a few weeks and amount to four or five parts. I wanted to post it as a oneshot, but I haven't been motivated to finish the story yet. I think I'll be more motivated if people read and review. ;)

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**Orphan of Flame**

_Part the First: A Light Already Lost_

**Serge**

Coming back to my senses, I realized I was coughing. Then I felt the floor under my knees. Reached out, grasped wood, stood. It was the headboard of a bed. Spots before my eyes, the afterimage of... of what? Falling, falling. I gasped and tried to focus my eyes. They were full of tears, and it wasn't just because of the smoke.

Kid. She was sitting up, staring at the wall. For a moment I saw the little girl she had been, tear-stained and covered in ashes. I wiped my eyes and breathed her name. Her eyes flew to me and she jerked away in almost animal fear. Then I understood in horror. "Kid, Kid, it's me, it's Serge. I'm not him. He's dead, Kid. I killed Lynx. He can't hurt you anymore." I wanted her to understand but I didn't know what to do, so I bent and put my arms around her awkwardly. Maybe I'd expected her to burst into tears, but she just sat there, rigid.

Her voice was blank and unfeeling when she broke my heart. "I don't think I wanna look at you right now."

I flinched back as if I'd been slapped. The others moved in to talk, a babble of voices, but the only one I heard was hers.

"What...? My wound...? Lynx stabbed me...? What are you talking about? Ohhh...wait a minute... Not again... I lose my memory sometimes. Whenever I'm in a dangerous situation where I might get hurt, I just seem to disappear and vanish. And when I come to, I wake up somewhere safe without a single scratch. But the thing is, I can't remember what happened. I don't get it... Anyway, it's happened to me plenty o' times in the past, so it's nothin' to worry about!" She smiled at everyone's concern and told them she was fit as a fiddle. A convincing actor, playing fine with all her might. If I hadn't known her better, I might have believed it myself. She wasn't really the kind of person who worries much about lying in the first place. But when she's staring at you firmly with those eyes of hers-those bold, straight, honest eyes-you haven't got a prayer of calling her bluff.

Her laugh rang hollow in my ears. The fire had swallowed the stars in her eyes. Had Lynx hurt her? I got madder and madder thinking about it, so I didn't think about it.

I left to get some air. Washed up in the rain barrel outside, changed my clothes, laundered the first set and hung them up to dry. My favorite pair of blue shorts, burned on one edge. I was burned too, so I took a couple of capsules.

And constantly, in the back of my mind, all I could hear was her small voice._ Are you going to go away? Are you going to leave me?_

I only came back when everyone was gone and Radius told me I should go see her.


	2. Fragment of a Dream

**A/N: **I cut up this would-be oneshot into bits in order to get zillions of reviews, but my evil plan doesn't appear to be working. Sniff. Read and review, people!

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**Orphan of Flame**

_Part the Second: Fragment of a Dream_

**Kid**

He still smelled like fire.

I was in shock. I answered his questions without hearing him. Yeah, I'm arright. No, Lynx didn' hurt me. Chewin' mechanically, tellin' myself the food was good, the first thin' I'd really tasted since... that daze I was in, completely under _his _power, and thinkin' he was Serge for so long. And now here was Serge for real, wakin' me from my nightmare like a bloody fairytale.

I knew it was him the moment I saw him. But it was still hard.

Focusin' on the table, my plate, his face. Anything but the candles lightin' up Radius's burned out tree-stump of a hideaway. Starin' into his eyes as if he could anchor me down. Tryin' not to remember the fire. Tryin' not to let tears come to my eyes, like I'd been bawlin' half an hour ago when he pulled me from the ruins of my house. Half an hour ago, ten years ago, what's the difference. Soot on my clothes and hackin' up a lung, never gettin' enough air. And he was there and I was six years old and ya know, I didn't remember this before at all. Didn't remember bein' saved. I blanked from the trauma. Maybe the amulet saved me the first time around? Bloody timelines always give me a headache. I absently clutched the astral amulet strung round my neck again, thankful that Serge'd returned it to me.

Starin' into his sea-blue eyes, feelin' like my face was stuck in one expression of emptiness. Made an effort to talk. "Thanks fer savin' me." Cleared my hoarse throat, attempted a joke. "And here I thought you couldn't do bugger all without me."

"I killed him, didn't I." His voice was tense, controlled. I looked away, caught my gaze in the flicker of a candle. Stare into the flame and it stares into you. He was Serge, but he wasn't the same. He was tougher. What happened to my innocent mate? I'd call him a pansy and he'd go into some sorta whiny panic or somethin', yellin' at me not to be such a rash troublemaker.

Sorrow in his voice now. "I'm... sorry you didn't get to avenge... Lucca."

I shivered at the name and looked away from the candle. In your eyes, I perceive both the look of a beauty and the look of a beast. Be mindful not to bring about your own end, my dear.

And that damned Frozen Flame. I dunno what I'd been expectin'. Hearing Serge's voice, but it wasn't his voice, and his lips sayin' it, but they weren't his lips, and those red eyes sure as hell weren't his.

Sure as hell. I am real sure of hell.

But my head was all messed up. It was like livin' in a dream; I believed he was Serge. And the machine called him _arbiter _and _Chrono Trigger _and it was déjà vu, and then I walked in and without a shadow of a doubt I knew that damned Flame. And it didn't matter if Lynx or Serge or anyone was arbiter, because it was _mine._

A dream lies in wait, reaching out to engulf you.

"Did Lynx hurt you?"

"No, the stabbin' was just a joke, all he really wanted was a friend." I glanced up, temper flarin', but stopped when I saw the look on his face. "Sheesh, mate, I'm okay. He didn't hurt me. I'm okay." He wasn't convinced. "I thought he was you. It was all one big nightmare. But... s'okay now. As long as I keep lookin' at ya and rememberin' who ya are... it feels farther and farther away." But yer not the same. Not the same. Oh Serge, I thought I could protect ya from all the world, I thought I could bloody look out for ya. And then you had to rescue me. Talk about embarrassin'.

He just looked at me. Really looked. His eyes were the sea. He was water and I was fire. Fire was my curse and I fought it and beat it and made it my weapon, but it doesn't stop me from gettin' burned over and over and over again.

I remembered the food in front of me, took another bite. It had gone cold. Cold food, burning candles. Burning house, cold feline eyes. Frozen Flame.

I figured I was goin' loony.


	3. Lost Child of Time

**A/N:** I've written this as if Serge chose to save Kid, because if he's like the Serge of Radical Dreamers he wouldn't have considered it an option. Thus, he wouldn't have had the fireside conversation with Kid, and I've worked that into the dialogue here.

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**Orphan of Flame**

_Part the Third: Lost Child of Time_

**Serge**

"Who was Lucca?" I blurted, unsure I should ask at all. Lynx had said something about her being a mad scientist, and the ghosts of Chronopolis said she practically invented time travel, or something. It seemed like everywhere I went I had no idea what anyone was talking about anymore. It was all some colossal misunderstanding. Lynx was going through this long monologue about Lucca and Prometheus and more people and things I didn't understand and wasn't listening to, thinking about how Kid looked just like a corpse, not the first time I'd seen her white and cold and I just wanted that bastard dead.

That haunted look chased over her face again. Brow set, eyes turned inward. "Sis... she found me. Adopted me. I was an orphan, abandoned when I was a baby. I guess she was a mother to me too, but she treated me like a baby sister. There were a lot of others like me at Sis's place, and... she was always makin' strange stuff... We didn't have money, but we were all happy... I grew up in that house... until Lynx burned it down and took her."

"It was a kidnapping?"

"That bastard..." she said, but her heart wasn't in it. He was gone, and she couldn't kill a dead man. She tried again with more vehemence. "That _bastard_ came and shattered our happiness to pieces! Lynx raided our house, burned it down, and kidnapped Sis!"

Her eyes shone, but she didn't quite cry. We were silent for awhile. Then, "My memories were pretty blank, until I remembered it all just now. At first I thought she musta died in the fire, and I wanted ta pick through the house and I burned my hands, and the other kids were outside and said... said she was kidnapped, and I remembered his face."

I felt ashamed, like a reflex. Living so long in the body of Lynx, demon cat-man, hating myself for what I looked like. Seeing my panther reflection and those jack-o-lantern eyes. The face she hated.

"Then... well, from then it was growing up with the Radical Dreamers and picking pockets for me livin'."

Kid had always been quiet about her past, and now I knew why. She talked about the Radical Dreamers like it was a grand old gang, before they got caught and killed and she was on her own. I remember how she looked inside Viper Manor, traipsing along like nothing, seeing all the traps and avoiding them like it was second nature. Outside she kept of the moonlight, didn't make a sound stalking through bushes and shadows. I tried to step in her footsteps, watched her ponytail swing back and forth like a pendulum. She'd halt and it was like time stopped, while she calculated the movement of a guard. I remember thinking, _It's the world of the night... Kid's world._ And she looked back to give us the all-clear, grinning at me with the moons reflected in her gaze. So long ago now, it seemed. "Ya gonna hang around all night or what, mate?" And I remember I forgot to get moving because I was lost in her eyes.

Just like I was now. Staring into her blue eyes reflecting candlelight, lost in memories. What was she saying? "Since then, I've wandered the world and experienced so much pain, just to get by... No one was there to help me. I was always alone."

Guilt again, at not being able to stay with her. Her childish voice. _Are you going to go away? Are you going to leave me? I'm going to be left all on my own again, aren't I? Everybody I have ever loved has gone far, far away..._ And I was sobbing and all I wanted to do was protect her, and the Mastermune gave out and whisked me back in a flickering red tunnel of light and darkness.

She continued relentlessly, too much fire in her eyes to notice tears welling in mine. "If you ask me, the idea of guardian angels watchin' over us all the time... that's a load of rubbish. In this world, the underhanded always gets the last laugh. Only the ones who don't think anything of hurtin' others are the ones who get blood-stained fortunes. The ones who kill, the ones who _devour,_ they're the ones who survive. That's the _only_ rule of this world!" Her eyes were spilling too now, as she slammed the table with her fist. Her fork flew into the air and fell somewhere behind her chair. She wiped at her eyes, trying to hide the motion by bending to pick up the utensil. She started clearing the table and continued the tirade. "The great species of mankind... our wonderful world, filled with love and happiness... HA! Don't make me laugh!" Smiling bitterly. "But if that's how it is, that's fine with me. As long as I'm alive, there ain't no goin' back. I'll abide by this world's rules, and do what I gotta do, despite the rotten hand of cards I've been dealt!" She dumped the dishes at the counter.

I stood, but couldn't think of anything to say. Which was just as well, because I didn't think I could speak without my voice cracking. Oh Kid. Oh, Kid. You were a star that fell from the sky.

"But now I got nothing left. I was living my life to make sure that bloody bastard paid for what he did. I was going to get even, avenge Lucca. And now he's paid and _I am still empty." _And now she really did burst into tears. I reached tentatively, and she fell into my arms. For the second time in a day, the second time in a decade, I held her in my arms while she cried.


End file.
